WMDC beta3 works on rc2

Fresh install of Vista x64 rc2.
Fresh install of Windows Mobile Device Center beta
3.(http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/devicecenter.mspx) for x64.
My "old" iPAQ4150 (mobile 2003) could sync with Outlook 2007 with no problems.
Still conversion from pocket Excel to "regular" excel format is not
supported when copying from the device to the hard disk.
Carlos

On Monday, just two days after making the Release Candidate 2 (RC2) version
of Windows Vista available to the public via the Customer Preview Program
(CPP), Microsoft pulled the download, confounding users who were hoping to
get the last public pre-release version of the product. But despite rumors
of problems, Microsoft says its removal of RC2 was all part of the plan.

"Windows Vista RC2 was an interim release distributed for the purposes of
final testing by a limited audience," a Microsoft representative told me
late yesterday. "Once that limit was reached and the necessary feedback was
collected from the CPP audience, Microsoft closed the site. For now, Windows
Vista RC1 remains the primary version for distribution and ongoing use."

That limit, incidentally, was 200,000 users. Microsoft program manager Nick
White says that the company distributed RC2 to that many CPP customers in
under 72 hours and then closed the download, as it had planned. Vista RC2 is
still available to technical beta testers and MSDN and TechNet subscribers,
however, Microsoft tells me.

I had the same problem, and found that Pocket Excel (in Pocket PC 2000 and
following versions) may use the Excel 2000 XLS format without conversion.
Of course, only the features available in Pocket Excel are available.
The same is true for Pocket Word and Word

So I used this workaround

a) make a last sync with my old Windows XP and ActiveSync, got the
Excel/Word files in my PC
b) repeated the sync in Windows Vista, got a lot of .pxl unusable crap
c) deleted all files in the Windows Vista sync folder and sync - they are
deleted in the device as well
d) copied all the Excel/Word files from step (a) and sync again

voila! everything is available both in PC and device, and further changes
are sync'ed both ways.

To keep in mind:
- when creating a new document on the device, use the desktop format
(i.e.XLS) instead of the pocket one.
- the desktop format is a little bigger than the pocket one - not an issue
in my case.

Can you get WMDC to synchronize between a Pocket PC and MS Outlook running
under Windows Vista RC1? I can't...

If you've got some ideas or workarounds, I sure would appreciate it...

Lightfoote
(909) 865-9535

"Jose Marcenaro" wrote:
> Hi Carlos
>
> I had the same problem, and found that Pocket Excel (in Pocket PC 2000 and
> following versions) may use the Excel 2000 XLS format without conversion.
> Of course, only the features available in Pocket Excel are available.
> The same is true for Pocket Word and Word
>
> So I used this workaround
>
> a) make a last sync with my old Windows XP and ActiveSync, got the
> Excel/Word files in my PC
> b) repeated the sync in Windows Vista, got a lot of .pxl unusable crap
> c) deleted all files in the Windows Vista sync folder and sync - they are
> deleted in the device as well
> d) copied all the Excel/Word files from step (a) and sync again
>
> voila! everything is available both in PC and device, and further changes
> are sync'ed both ways.
>
> To keep in mind:
> - when creating a new document on the device, use the desktop format
> (i.e.XLS) instead of the pocket one.
> - the desktop format is a little bigger than the pocket one - not an issue
> in my case.
>
> Hope this helps
> Jose.
>
>
>
>
> "Carlos" wrote:
>
> > Fresh install of Vista x64 rc2.
> > Fresh install of Windows Mobile Device Center beta
> > 3.(http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/devicecenter.mspx) for x64.
> > My "old" iPAQ4150 (mobile 2003) could sync with Outlook 2007 with no problems.
> > Still conversion from pocket Excel to "regular" excel format is not
> > supported when copying from the device to the hard disk.
> > Carlos

I tried a similar approach but with no success. I just copied my backup xls
file to the sync folder on my pc (so it would be sync'ed to my PDA). And it
is sync'ed, but it remains as .XLS, and any change made in the my PDA is
simply ignored while loading on my PC.

In fact I'm a bit disapointed, since Outlook 2000 is not supported by WMDC,
because I already own Outlook 2000 (came with my PDA). I hope Microsoft could
review its "system requirements" so I could still use my PDA and my Outlook
2000 when Vista arives.

Does anyone has any information about this convertion issue? Maybe Microsoft
will not add this feature to WMDC, since with Windows Mobile 5, there is no
need to convert XLS to PXL, because Mobile Excel uses "native" XLS format.
But, as the system requirements says, it supports Windows Mobile 2003, so it
also must support PXL files.

Thanks for your tip, even not working for me

"Jose Marcenaro" wrote:
> Hi Carlos
>
> I had the same problem, and found that Pocket Excel (in Pocket PC 2000 and
> following versions) may use the Excel 2000 XLS format without conversion.
> Of course, only the features available in Pocket Excel are available.
> The same is true for Pocket Word and Word
>
> So I used this workaround
>
> a) make a last sync with my old Windows XP and ActiveSync, got the
> Excel/Word files in my PC
> b) repeated the sync in Windows Vista, got a lot of .pxl unusable crap
> c) deleted all files in the Windows Vista sync folder and sync - they are
> deleted in the device as well
> d) copied all the Excel/Word files from step (a) and sync again
>
> voila! everything is available both in PC and device, and further changes
> are sync'ed both ways.
>
> To keep in mind:
> - when creating a new document on the device, use the desktop format
> (i.e.XLS) instead of the pocket one.
> - the desktop format is a little bigger than the pocket one - not an issue
> in my case.
>
> Hope this helps
> Jose.
>
>
>
>
> "Carlos" wrote:
>
> > Fresh install of Vista x64 rc2.
> > Fresh install of Windows Mobile Device Center beta
> > 3.(http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/devicecenter.mspx) for x64.
> > My "old" iPAQ4150 (mobile 2003) could sync with Outlook 2007 with no problems.
> > Still conversion from pocket Excel to "regular" excel format is not
> > supported when copying from the device to the hard disk.
> > Carlos

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